Q&A with Ron Romain, executive chairman of Evansville-based United Cos.
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It’s been more than a year since Ron Romain stepped down as CEO of Evansville-based United Cos. and transitioned to executive chairman. In 2023, his daughter, Amy Romain Barron, succeeded him as head of the holding company, which is made up of United Leasing & Finance, Romain Automotive Group, Professional Transportation Inc. and Tri-State Aero.
Romain is the chair of the Evansville Regional Business Committee and a 2023 Indiana 250 honoree. He’s also an earnest advocate for the return of nonstop Chicago and Detroit flights to Evansville. The city lost service in those markets in 2022.
Romain spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the past year at United Cos. and the construction of Tri-State Aero’s new terminal at Evansville Regional Airport.
How are things at United Cos. since you became executive chairman?
Quite good. Amy [Romain Barron] has two of the four companies report to her. That was our plan initially. That’s working very well. She was well suited for the transition with the years she had been there and the various positions that she had held prior to taking the CEO role.
The transition has gone well, and it’s a bit of a testament to the planning process that we’ve had the discipline around as well as the people who have been within the company for a long time who saw it coming and were supportive of the move.
I’m probably still involved in things that I shouldn’t be, but that’s just part of the transition. I contemplated some of that. You just can’t flip the switch and have everything end overnight. But all in all, I’m very pleased. I’m happy with the progress that she’s making. Companies are doing well.
We are looking at continuing to grow the business, and so that was going to be my shift. More strategic projects, acquisitions and even some artificial intelligence projects that we’re looking at doing have actually surfaced. And so with our [information technology] group, I’ve tried to take the lead on that, moving into some things that I didn’t have much visibility before, but now I have the time to do it, and I’ve enjoyed that.
How’s Amy doing as CEO?
We’re in the process of doing our performance evaluations, so we’ll get some feedback from all the business unit presidents. There will be about six or eight people who will provide feedback on her evaluation. These are unvarnished 360s that we get from people, and we’ve taken them seriously for years, so it’s not anything new.
She’s been through this many times before she was named CEO. That process is a healthy process. It keeps everyone on their toes. And where there are opportunities for improvement, she takes that to heart, and she’s doing well. She’ll get that feedback.
The Korn Ferry Tour Championship, presented by United Leasing & Finance, made its last appearance in Newburgh last fall. How did that go?
It went well as far as the financial benefit for our nonprofit, which is early childhood education. We’re happy about that. I’m even more encouraged about what we’re seeing in terms of the level of interest in moving to the new venue, the Pete Dye Course at French Lick.
I have to give a big shout-out to Joe Vezzoso and Dave Harner, the two individuals who are leading the effort for the transition and for the tournament to be there. They have both just been remarkable. Very welcoming, very excited about the event.
We have an opportunity to expand the number of Pro-Am teams, which is where we generate a lot of revenue on behalf of the nonprofit. Doug Pettit, our executive vice president and chief people officer at United Companies, takes that up and works with Dave because he’s the head professional at French Lick. They’ve been able to accommodate us for more players because they have two golf courses, the Donald Ross Course and the Pete Dye Course.
The final tournament [in Newburgh], the only bittersweet part was we had so many people who were involved. The community was really involved. Our initial reason for doing the golf tournament was to support Evansville and the nonprofits in the Evansville region. Our emphasis now is going to be more on southwest Indiana and the state of Indiana in terms of what we can do for early childhood development.
Tell me about your work as chair of the Evansville Regional Business Committee.
That’s a group of about 21 CEOs in Evansville. We try and identify those companies and those individual CEOs who are the most active and engaged in the community, who want to see it grow and develop and take on challenges and strategic, big-picture initiatives that we see.
Things like the I-69 bridge and the Bridgelink work, the I-69 corridor that goes back 15 or 20 years ago, Talent EVV or what was called Talent 2025, which has evolved into Talent EVV, working with the [Evansville Regional Economic Partnership].
The project now that’s underway is with Sasaki; it’s an outside consulting firm that’s doing the study on the entire riverfront for the three-county area: Posey County, Vanderburgh County and Warrick County. The ERBC is supportive of that and has been pushing to get a little more of a strategic plan and bring the river into play more in each of these communities than in the past. Those are just a sample of the type of projects that the ERBC takes on.
What’s the status of Chicago and Detroit flights returning to Evansville?
There have been a lot of good conversations going on with the Indiana Economic Development Corp. They’ve been very supportive and understanding of the problem that we have and the impact that it’s having on some of the businesses in our area.
The airport board and Nate [Hahn], the airport manager, have been very supportive in trying to do the same thing, drawing these airlines into conversations and even offering financial support. Both the ERBC and the IEDC offered financial support.
It’s been a long, hard, difficult timeline that we’ve been through to try and get us to the point where we are today, where we think there’s at least an opportunity that we’re going to have a flight back to Chicago sometime this year, if not as soon as perhaps mid-year.
That Chicago route is just so critical to so many of our businesses. So those conversations are starting to bear some fruit … Not much on Detroit yet. Still nothing pending. There are two airlines that we’re talking to, United and American Airlines.
We have made some progress with Allegiant. There’s that flight now to St. Petersburg that they announced. We had Breeze that stepped up and came to town, and they’re doing a flight to Florida as well. So we’ve got some new airlines coming in.
From a business standpoint, though, we really need those Chicago and Detroit flights. But these airlines, for the various reasons that we’ve all heard—lack of pilots, the COVID impact—their business has been disrupted. Here we are years later, and we’re still having to deal with this problem that we would have thought would have been done by now. But we’re not giving up on it. We’re using every resource we have available to make it happen. It’s just frustrating.
Tell me about the new Tri-State Aero terminal at EVV that’s expected to open in August.
It’s well underway. We are really excited about that. It was in 1976, I want to say, that I got my single engine pilot’s license, and I remember going in and out of the current facility, and this was before they had actually renovated it to what it is today. And I remember thinking, “Boy, this place is kind of dated.” Nearly 50 years later, while it’s clean and it’s as kept as well as it can be, it’s just dated.
This new terminal is going to make a huge impact on how people view Evansville when they come in because that’s private aviation. A lot of companies come and go out of Evansville. Any corporate traveler who comes in, they have an impression of our community based on what they see when they step off that airplane. And this new facility is world-class. It is first-rate across the board.
Hafer in Evansville did the architectural design. They’ve done a phenomenal job of listening to what we thought as owners of the [fixed-based operator] at Tri-State Aero, what we needed and what we saw that the business community was demanding and stepped up and designed something that’s going to be well suited for all the things that we said we had to have.
I know the airport authority, the board is excited about it. It’s just going to be a real breath of fresh air on that site. The old building will be torn down, and we’ll have more ramp space for aircraft as well as employee and guest parking.
What else is new at United Companies in 2024?
There are some things we’re working on that we’ll hopefully be announcing soon. But like most companies, we’ve got a lot of activity. We’ve got a high-spirited group of leaders within the company who are young men and women who want to grow the business. And, of course, Amy is in that group as well. But we’ve been pretty intentional about transitioning from old leadership to new leadership. I see a lot of excitement from our teams.
We’ve been in business now for 60 years. So that’s a bit of news. It seems like we were just celebrating our 50th year a couple of years ago. I see as much enthusiasm and excitement today as I did 20 years ago and 30 years ago. That’s refreshing for me since I’m on the downside of my career. It’s great to see that legacy of growth and employee engagement and customer service is going to continue. We’re growing and looking forward to the next generation.
What does it mean to be named an Indiana 250 honoree?
Really what I care about is Evansville, southwest Indiana, and even the state of Indiana. It’s my home. The recognition is fine, but what I care about are the outcomes of the work that I can contribute to. If we’re not achieving some outcomes, if we’re not making progress and improving the part of the state that I can impact, then I’m going to be very disappointed. I keep my eye on the horizon about various projects we’ve got going on to bring them across the finish line.
I’m passionate about [the University of Southern Indiana]. I’m a trustee at USI. I want to continue to see us grow enrollment, grow the quality of our students and the outcomes because the reality is businesses in our region as well as across the state of Indiana are hiring our graduates, and we need high-quality graduates. Which we have, I’m proud to say. We have some great outcomes of students who go through USI.